Democratic voters celebrating victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Right now, America is suffering a kind of dual political reality. One the one hand, Joe Biden has won the 2020 presidential election and is now considered the President-elect. On the other hand, Donald Trump and many leading Republicans are denying Biden’s victory, instead supporting Trump’s frivolous court challenges to the results in a number of states. In the meantime, Trump has instructed his Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with President-elect Biden’s transition team, which is dangerous for U.S. national security and our health, given the worsening COVID pandemic. Therefore, we have a strong interest in resolving this latest Trump-created Constitutional crisis quickly, and letting Biden get his team in place to receive briefing and other crucial information. Here are four ways, from a messaging perspective, that we can help President-elect Biden become President Biden smoothly, thoroughly and on time:
1. Call him “President-elect Biden” — If you scroll up to the first paragraph, you will see that is what we did. Calling Biden “President-elect” instantly confers legitimacy on him. And it’s just one word away from “President,” which Biden will be when he is sworn into office on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021. The more people use the P-word for Biden, the more the rest of the world will become accustomed to it. And by the way, if you look back at previous Messaging Matters posts, we never use the word to describe Donald Trump, for the exact opposite reason.
2. Cite news articles indicating that Biden has won the election — A great example is the Associated Press (AP) article cited in the first link above: “Biden defeats Trump for White House, says ‘time to heal’.” AP is considered the top source, or one of the top sources, for calling election results. There are many other news articles that mention Biden as the election winner merely as part of their premise, and then go on to report on substantive matters flowing from that result. Here is a good example in the lede from an Axios article published on Sunday:
Never before has a president-elect inherited a complex set of urgent — and epic — emergencies like the ones confronting Joe Biden and America.
Another such example comes from the New York Times last Saturday evening: “How Joe Biden Won the Presidency.”
Note that the effect of passing along such citations on social media and elsewhere is subtle. It does not mean you then have to hit people over the head and say, “See? Biden is being called the election winner and ‘President-elect.'” On the contrary, such articles, in the parlance of those who teach sales techniques, already “assume the sale.” Another way of putting it, using the language of self-help gurus, psychologists and even successful business people, is that, by sending such articles to your social media accounts and to friends and loved ones, you are “acting as if.” This is essentially a subtle, sometimes even subconscious, form of psychological manipulation which, if used correctly, can be quite powerful.
3. Cite global leaders who have congratulated Biden on his victory —
Here was U.K. Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson on Tuesday:
I just spoke to @JoeBiden to congratulate him on his election. I look forward to strengthening the partnership between our countries and to working with him on our shared priorities – from tackling climate change, to promoting democracy and building back better from the pandemic.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 10, 2020
Johnson’s words reflect those of national leaders from around the world, including Canada, France, Ireland, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Hungary, Israel, Palestine, India, Colombia and others. Some of these leaders went even further, stressing their happiness that the U.S. would soon “revive our transatlantic friendship” (in the case of Germany) and work together once again on specific challenges such as climate change (in the case of the U.K. and France, for instance). Implicit in some of these statements was subtle criticism against Donald Trump for disengaging from these important foreign relationships and global challenges. Thus, citing such leaders’ statements is an important way to confer validity upon President-elect Biden and his victory.
4. Cite business leaders who have mentioned Biden as the President-elect — Business leaders are very important to cite for support when possible, because they are often considered to put their business interests before their political interests. This can be the case on different issues, such as climate change. In the 2020 elections, there are plenty of examples of those in the business community talking about business conditions going forward now that Biden has won the election. For example, here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal (owned by conservative Rupert Murdoch) from Monday: “Dow Surges to Highest Level Since February on Vaccine Results, Biden Win.”
Likewise, an executive from the Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a phone call with reporters on Monday, stating that the election is over and Biden has won. Similarly, as reported in the same Roll Call article:
In addition to the U.S. Chamber, the groups issuing congratulatory statements [to President-elect Biden] included the National Restaurant Association, the American Council of Life Insurers, the American Chemistry Council, the National Retail Federation, Credit Union National Association and the Online Lenders Alliance, among many others.
There are plenty of actions that we can take to assist President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President elect Kamala Harris make the transition to power to which they are entitled. We can, for example, donate to the Biden Fight Fund to defeat Trump’s court challenges, or to the Democratic U.S. Senate candidates in their upcoming runoff elections in Georgia, which will likely determine whether Biden and Harris have a Democratic-majority Senate to support them. However, in terms of our use of everyday language and social media, the free life hacks listed above could also provide a boost to achieve the results we desire.
Photo by Daniel Arauz, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/GPGI8K
